If it took a mutant to do monstrous things, the history of the human species would look very different. Mutants would be rare.
Maybe I’m missing something, but shouldn’t it read: “Mutants would not be rare.” ?
Many monstrous things happened in human history, so if only mutants could do evil deeds, there would have to be a lot of them.
Furthermore, mutants are rare, so no need for the subjunctive “would”.
We posit a hypothetical alternate universe U where only mutants do monstrous things.
We observe that mutants are rare in our world, and we speculate that the causes of mutant rarity would not be different in U, and therefore we conclude that “mutants would be rare” in U, and therefore we conclude that “the history of the human species would look very different” in U… specifically, that fewer monstrous things would have happened.
Great post of course.
Maybe I’m missing something, but shouldn’t it read: “Mutants would not be rare.” ? Many monstrous things happened in human history, so if only mutants could do evil deeds, there would have to be a lot of them. Furthermore, mutants are rare, so no need for the subjunctive “would”.
We posit a hypothetical alternate universe U where only mutants do monstrous things.
We observe that mutants are rare in our world, and we speculate that the causes of mutant rarity would not be different in U, and therefore we conclude that “mutants would be rare” in U, and therefore we conclude that “the history of the human species would look very different” in U… specifically, that fewer monstrous things would have happened.